“We lost our ability to be picky because we were so completely broke”.

When I started doing my Pantry Anarchy recipes I know there were people who seemed quite dismayed that they weren’t “low cost real food” recipes. There are enough food bloggers out there giving advice on how low income people can eat healthy and what I personally hear is that the information isn’t helpful. It’s more helpful to have ideas on what to do with stale bread, canned peas, dehydrated potato flakes, and a tube of USDA issued ground beef. Because that’s what low income people are more likely to have access to. Ideally, I try to use the low quality ingredients I have to create food that’s creative, delicious, and nutritious but at the end of the day, #1 priority is that it’s edible and fills a space in our stomachs.

The way many of us low income people eat is not the way we would love to eat and on the flip side of that, many people who do not struggle with food insecurity are not conscientious about eating “healthy” and no one chastises them for purposefully choosing fast food and junk. People with food privilege should check their own while also looking at who they are choosing to aim their “concern” (shaming often) toward. Are you focused on the people who choose to eat poorly even though they have the means to eat well or the people who don’t have the means to eat any other way but poorly and have little choice in the matter?

Sure. Great fridge for a vegan with money and ability to do food preservation for anything that needs to be preserved before it becomes waste because dang, that’s a lot of fresh produce to use up. I guess what bothers me about images like this is that they declare that people should eat like this but are they saying, “EVEN POOR PEOPLE!” or ….are they just expecting everyone to make it happen for themselves? I never know .

8 thoughts on “Checking food privilege”

You have to have a pretty healthy income to eat with all those healthy rules. It also helps if you have access. I live in a small rural town with no grocery store. Nearest is a 15 mile round trip with fair freshies available….the big box stores are a 35 mile round trip. And let’s be serious, exactly how fresh IS IT being shipped in off season to Michigan? Let alone organic. (and if I don’t grow it, I can be sure of that either) Farmers market is again a 35 mile round trip….my garden won’t go in until the end of May. I have a grass fed beef farm in the next town over…..its beyond my budget. Can’t imagine what a family would do.

All you can do is the best you can do. Frankly, I was quite impressed with your way with all those spare apples. I have apple trees with more apples than I can manage. Not ONE person has ever stopped and asked for them. Not one. Fortunately, there are a few deer wandering about and they do clean up.

The nearest grocery store here is 12 miles or so. I found this great place for produce here. It’s on a backroad almost directly in back of where we live. This man basically has a little shop in an addition to his house. It’s all fairly local but he does get oranges and avocados in from Florida when they’re in season. It’s less expensive than the grocery store. He even has milk ,eggs, and cheese. But without that little tiny place, there’s only a gas station to get milk and I swear they must charge nearly double
And that’s the place that has apples for $1 each O.O

Full disclosure–I’m not poor, I work full time and can shop when and where I want, and when I saw this fridge I thought, “Very pretty but one person [me] isn’t going to get all that fresh produce eaten before it spoils or I’m going to have to cook and/or preserve it. And I have the kitchen I can do that in! It’s impractical for any number of people. More of this is nice if you can afford it (for all parameters of “afford”) but that’s just not true for everybody (I too saw the tomatoes. And all that stuff open in the fridge? Way to get a jumpstart on the compost heap!).

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